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Having joined Nottingham Outlaws in June 2023, i was just finding my feet when members went off for last years’ Kitkat to North East England; so was quick to jump on board with this years jaunt to the Loch Lomond area of Scotland.

On the way, we visited a church of architectural interest in East Kilbride, but were unfortunately unable to gain access to the interior (we returned on the way home)

Before arriving in Dumbarton, we also visited The Burrell Collection at a gallery in a country park. A string quartet were playing in the gallery. Then it was off to Dumbarton to get settled in the hotel.

Next morning saw us visiting Glasgow University, where we photographed the impressive Cloisters and the home of Charles Rennie Macintosh (inside a campus building); before a street photography session around Glasgow city centre, including a visit to Barras Market where I came across stallholder Jimmy, who was a real character and had posters on his stall incorporating his photo. He showed me a Peaky Blinders wanted poster with him on it.

Other places visited included the transport museum; The Armadillo and Ovo buildings; ‘Squinty’ Bridge (waited for two hours for it to be illuminated, and it never happened); Cloch Lighthouse; Wemyss Station; RSPB Loch Lomond; Finnich Glen and The Devils Pulpit.

Reg Patterson

Darley Moor MotorCycle Road Racing Club (Darley Moor MCRRC) Race Circuit near Ashbourne in Derbyshire was the venue for the “Stars at Darley” race meeting, the last race of the road racing championship series. 

Darley Moor is a great circuit for photographers who want to capture images of fast racing motorcycles and their riders. You can get close up to the action especially at the hairpin bend where high speeds are reduced significantly to navigate the hairpin safely. This is a popular location and many photographers gather here.

Four Nottingham Outlaws (NOPS) made the trip there over the weekend, having first researched the DMMCRRC website and purchased admission tickets in advance. Racing was over two days (Saturday & Sunday) with the main race event having a part one on the Saturday & concluding part two on the Sunday. Ray was the first to visit the circuit on the Saturday, taking lots of images as well as understanding the protocols and learning the circuit. Ray commented that he had taken approximately 1400 images over the course of the day.

PIERROT PORTRAITS  – quite an experience

Back in May I was invited to shoot a series of portraits for a CD cover; a new release by the soprano Claire Booth and Ensemble 360. The album was to be called ‘Pierrot Portraits’ and it features music inspired by the commedia dell’arte character Pierrot, sometimes known as the sad clown. Someone, in their wisdom, decided that with such an album concept then a set of portraits of the musicians, complete with Pierrot make-up, would make an ideal album cover And that’s where I came into the project. Why me? Well I have to declare an interest in that my son Benjamin, is a member of Ensemble 360, and they were looking for a photographer with musical sympathies and a low fee demand, very low!

The shoot took place in Sheffield, in the Crucible Theatre.  A make-up artist was hired and we had just a morning to get the job done. The musicians were in the middle of a major chamber music festival in Sheffield and the soprano Claire Booth came up from London. I soon became aware that the pressure was on. 

Four new guides and tutorials have been created and are located in the members area – guides and tutorial section – for the following subjects.

1. Preparing images for print

2. Ordering prints from DSCL

3. Posting to the NOPS Facebook page

4. Posting to the NOPS instagram page

These guides were created by Lois Webb & the Facebook tutorial by Mark Taylor, if you would like to see other guides please let the editors know.

September 2024 4th Print Competition 

The fourth print competition of the year was held on Thursday 28^th September at St James church Hall the home of the Nottingham Outlaws. The print competition started back in March 2024 and is run on a bi-monthly basis. Going into this leg of the print competition Lester Woodward & Lois Webb were tying for first place both on 322 points, in third place was Nigel Stewart (315pts) followed closely by Chris Holdsworth (314pts). Tonight’s penultimate competition could give one of the leading group the edge over their close rivals. 

The judge for this round of the competition was Malcolm Sales, a judge who had visited the Outlaws on several previous occasions. Malcolm started off the evening complementing the Outlaws on the quality of their printing, this comment cropped up a number of times as he went through the images one by one, part of the judging process.

There were two categories for Malcolm to judge, the Open category and the Themed which in this evening was “Architecture”. In total there were 21entries in the Open and 24 in the Themed.